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Tohru Honda
Tohru Honda is the heroine of the Fruits Basket series. She is the only daughter of Kyoko Honda and Katsuya Honda, both of whom are deceased. She moves into the house with Shigure Sohma, Yuki Sohma and later Kyo Sohma after Yuki and Shigure discovered her living in a tent on their property. She worked part-time to support herself when she was living on her own, and continues to despite moving to Shigure's house. Her two best friends are Arisa Uotani and Saki Hanajima. Tohru is very grateful to the Sohmas and loves every bit of time she spends with them. Takaya gave Tohru a name normally used only for men because she likes to give masculine names to female characters "to balance them out." In addition, Takaya chose to have other characters address her as "Tohru-kun", using an honorific typically used for boys, because she thought it was "a more dignified form of address." Appearance Tohru is an average height, slender girl with long brown hair and front bangs that frame her brown eyes (blue in the anime, brown in the manga). She only ever wears dresses and short skirts, and almost always has different colored bows in her hair, either a large one in the back or two smaller ones pulling back her hair at the sides. One of the only times Tohru is seen wearing a long dress is when she played the not-so-evil stepsister in the school play, Sorta Cinderella. Personality Tohru is an extremely kind girl who refuses to let anyone lift a finger for her. Her friends sometimes call her "a pushover". As a result, Ayame Sohma and Hiro Sohma seem to order her around. She makes sure everything is nice and clean in Shigure's house and promises to pay anyone back who treats her. For example, when Yuki explains to her that the area where her tent was set up was Sohma property, she says that she would stay there for only another week, and that she would pay them with what little money she had if they let her stay on the property. Isuzu Sohma thought that she and Hatsuharu Sohma were too nice, as did Kureno Sohma. Akito Sohma thought that Tohru was an idiot because she was too kind and willing to forgive anyone for anything that they've done to her. Tohru is constantly cleaning up, enjoying housework and doesn't mind doing things for others (Eg: In Volume 12, she made tea for Shishou while visiting him). Story Overview History Family When Tohru was a toddler, her father, Katsuya Honda, passed away, leaving Tohru behind alone with her depressed mother. As she was young, she does not have much memory of her father. She can only remember her father through photographs she took from the house she shared with her mother. As her mother was thrown into depression, she could not watch television like other children (Kyoko kept on changing the channels) and was left alone for many days or weeks or months. (Kyoko didn't know how long it was that she ignored her daughter.) At times, Katsuya's father came and took care of Tohru, giving her meals and taking care of her well-being. It was also Tohru who made Kyoko realize that she should not just throw away her life. By recalling that she had not spoken to Tohru for a long time when she hears a young girl calling out to her mother, Kyoko rushes back to hug Tohru, realizing that if she commits sucide, there would not be anyone left to take good care of her. However, young Tohru jolts awake from her doze and only says,"Welcome home," like Katsuya used to say. Being reminded that she still had Tohru, Kyoko's world started to revolve around Tohru. She was cheerful, happy, and always loved Tohru. Despite being a toddler, Tohru also managed to make the Red Butterfly (aka Kyoko) faint at the sight of her nose bleeding. When Tohru is in Middle School, she meets Arisa Uotani (Uo-chan), an outcast and a rebel with only an alcoholic father. Uo-chan idolized the Red Butterfly her whole life, but she only thought of her as a tough fighter, not as a doting mother. Uo-chan is devastated, until she realizes that Tohru and Kyokyo-san are very happy together. They take care of Uo-chan like she is family. School Life Tohru, since she was young, has been bullied in some ways. In elementary school, when her class was playing a game called "Fruits Basket", her class chairman gave a fruit name to everyone except Tohru, whom he gave her "riceball" or onigiri. As she was as airhead as she is now, she did not realise she was being left out in the game at all. She sat there patiently, throughout the whole game, hoping and praying that she would be called out. One time, she was being picked on by so many times by the boys that she had to ran away, only ending up lost. She was found by the young Yuki and was led back to her home without knowing a single thing who the boy was except that he was wearing a red cap. Yuki then placed the hat on her head, and she treasures it forever, although she never realized it belonged to Yuki. It was later revealed that Tohru chose to runaway from school as she became very upset and worried that she might make her mother angry or sad if she tells her she was being picked on in school. Due to her formal speech imitation of her father, most of her schoolmates likes to poke fun of her, calling her "weird" or "strange". Before Summer Vacation During Summer Vacation After Summer Vacation Relationships Main article: Tohru's Relationships Trivia *According to Natsuki Takaya in interviews, Tohru was the first character she created for the series, with Yuki and Kyo Sohma soon after. When asked how she came up with Tohru's personality and background, she said: "I thought that for a girl to accept other people's feelings so wholeheartedly, she'd have to have a slightly unusual way of looking at things so that she wouldn't be crushed by having so much empathy. But I still worried that I needed something else to flesh her out. And then the thought, 'Oh, yeah—I'll make her use super-polite language, and use it incorrectly!' came to me all at once. After that, her character was completed in no time." *Takaya described Tohru Honda, Yuki Sohma, Kyo Sohma and Shigure Sohma as the main cast. *The tent that Tohru lives in is in the shape of a half cylinder in the manga; buti in the anime, it is much smaller and in the shape of a triangular prism. Category:Fruits Basket Characters Category:Females Category:Honda Family Category:Sohmas Category:Mothers Category:Students